MELBOURNE, Australia—
Li Na
's
streak of bad luck at the Australian Open is no more.

Li, the 31-year-old from China who had lost two heart-wrenching finals in Melbourne, won her first Australian Open title on Saturday evening, 7-6(3) 6-0 over Dominika Cibulkova.

Li got off to a shaky start—she made 25 unforced errors in the first set and couldn't find a rhythm on her serve—but she lifted her game in the first-set tiebreaker and early in the second set. Once Li's serve and forehand settled, Cibulkova, a 24-year-old playing her first major final, could no longer keep pace.

Read More

Photos

Associated Press

When Cibulkova made an error on the final point of the match, Li looked more relieved than ecstatic. She then showed off her unmatched talent for giving post-match victory speeches.

"Now I have to thank my team: Max [Eisenbud], my agent, make me rich. Thanks a lot!" Li said. Of her husband—who was once her coach and is now her hitting partner—Li said, "Thanks a lot, you are a nice guy. And also you are so lucky [to] find me."

Li won the French Open in 2011 and remains the only player from China, man or woman, to win a Grand Slam singles title. It's not unrealistic for her to reach another milestone this year: The first player from China to hold the No. 1 ranking. On Monday, Li will rise to No. 3, and be within a dozen points of No. 2.

In the 2011 Australian Open final, Li lost in three sets to Kim Clijsters. Last year, she lost in three sets to Victoria Azarenka and hit her head on the court after a fall.

There were no stumbles in this year's final, though for a while Li seemed intent on making the match as difficult as possible.

At one point in the first set, Li had made just two of her 16 first serve attempts, a poor percentage (13%) for amateur tennis, never mind the professional tour. Her forehand wasn't much better: She made 16 forehand errors in the first set and twice blew a break-of-serve lead.

"Both of us [were] tight, nervous," she said.

But Cibulkova—a dynamic ball striker and mover with a lot more power than one would expect from a woman of 5-foot-3—couldn't hit with the same consistency as she did in the semifinal, when she pummeled No. 5 seed Agnieszka Radwanska 6-1, 6-2. She is the first woman from Slovakia to reach a Grand Slam singles final.

The most fortunate moment for Li in this tournament came in the first week, when she was within inches of a third-round upset in the middle of a Melbourne heat wave. But her opponent, Lucie Safarova, barely missed a winner attempt on match point and Li survived. She didn't lose another set the rest of the tournament. She also faced an uncommonly easy draw, as she didn't have to beat anyone seeded higher than Cibulkova (No. 20) to win the title.

Li is now the fourth woman in the Open era, which began in 1968, to win a major singles title after facing a match point. She's in good company: Monica Seles, Jennifer Capriati and Serena Williams, who has done it twice, are the others.

But Li is an unconventional champion compared with those all-time greats. She didn't start playing tennis until age nine, after switching from badminton. She reached her first Grand Slam final at 28 and struggled with success, and her confidence, after she won the French Open in 2011. Last year she was so unhappy with her progress that she considered retiring.

Li's coach, Carlos Rodriguez, the former coach of Justine Henin, said Li's future in tennis was difficult to predict.

"It depends on how she is going to [process] this experience," Rodriguez said. "It's going to be a little bit tricky in the beginning."

But Rodriguez thinks Li could accomplish a lot more, if only she believes she can and commits fully to the attacking style that worked so well for her at this tournament, before she abandoned it in the first set of the final.

"I don't see what I want to see yet," Rodriguez said. "Tomorrow I'm going to try to explain to her, please, now you win your second one, now please, give me at least one or two tournaments."

Li said she was better prepared for her future, whatever it may hold, than she was after her first Grand Slam title.

"Before I was very worried about how people look at me, what they say about me," she said. "But now I really, I think I'm strong enough."

Congratulations to LI-Na. She was the most consistent of all the top seeds and remained so to the last end. She deserved to win and I applaud her. Well done to her and commiserations to Cibulkova who put up a tough resistance but had too weak shots and couldn't really hurt the No. 4 seed with her shots. All roads lead to Roland Garros - Clay court season pretty soon!

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.